Aletai Meteorite Smuggling Prevented at Port

Customs officers at the port of St. Petersburg stopped an attempt to smuggle a fragment of the Aletai meteorite weighing over 2.5 tons (approx. 5,512 lb). The cargo was headed to the United Kingdom.

The fragment was discovered during a scan of a sea container. It had initially been brought into Russia from a country within the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), declared as a sculpture for landscape design.

A detailed inspection revealed that the origin and value of the cargo did not match the declaration. An expert examination determined it to be a large fragment of the iron Aletai meteorite. «The examination established that this is a large fragment of the iron Aletai meteorite, and its value is about 323 million rubles (approximately $3,588,900 at current exchange rates),» the customs service stated. A criminal case has been opened under Part 1 of Article 226.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (smuggling of strategically important goods and resources or cultural valuables). The maximum penalty under this article is up to three years of imprisonment.

The Aletai meteorite was first found in 1898 in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China. Since then, numerous fragments have been discovered, including a 23-ton piece found in 2021. The meteorite is known for its unique structure with interwoven bands of metal. Scientists believe it is part of the core of an ancient protoplanet or large asteroid that disintegrated about 4.5 billion years ago, during the formation of the Solar System. Currently, advertisements for the sale of Aletai meteorite fragments can be found online.